Tsarina

by Ellen Alpsten

  65

  Alexey returned to Moscow in the bleak midwinter. All along his way, Russian peasants threw themselves on their knees, calling him a saint and praying for his welfare. It had been impossible to keep his escape secret and for them the Tsarevich had become a symbol of hope. Someone had dared to rebel against the almighty and often incomprehensible ruler – and not just anyone: the Tsar’s own son.

  Peter paced the Kremlin’s walls, scanning the Red Square: Alexey must cross it to come to him. The Tsar had sworn to treat his son with forgiveness and gentleness upon his return to Russia. He had sworn by God, the Christian faith and the Holy Spirit.

  He had sworn by his very soul.

  Icy Moscow frost glazed Alexey’s heart when he finally crossed the city’s boundaries; he was frozen with fear and had no idea what awaited him. Not knowing was a punishment in itself. Afrosinja had stayed back in Vienna, very pregnant, and constantly demanded consignments of food: fresh caviar, smoked salmon and sacks of cornmeal for kasha.

  Four days after his arrival in Moscow, Peter called Alexey before a ’specially convened council. I myself was not allowed to attend, as he feared my softening influence. In truth, I was glad not to have to witness this farce.

  On the evening of the trial, Alexandra Tolstoya came to my rooms, carrying a tray of hot wine and savoury pastries, but I had no appetite. ‘What did the Tsar say?’ I asked her.

  ‘Say?’ She touched her ear as if it hurt. ‘You mean shout. All afternoon, all night, until nightfall. Until his voice deserted him. The council members are deafened by it, and the Tsarevich knelt before them for hours on end, listening to it all, crying and begging for his life.’

  ‘What is Alexey accused of ?’

  ‘Just about everything,’ Alexandra Tolstoya said plainly, sipping mulled wine and briefly closing her eyes. ‘His poor education, his weak health, his cowardice, Charlotte’s death, his fornication with Afrosinja, his choice of mother –’

  ‘His choice of mother?’ I asked, bewildered.

  ‘Yes. Forgive me. Only my brother knows about this besides the council members, and now we too. And at least in your rooms the walls do not have ears.’

  ‘Tell me,’ I whispered. Tears of fear were shining in Alexandra’s eyes when she said hoarsely, ‘The witch-hunt has begun, Tsaritsa. Everyone who has ever been in contact with the Tsarevich, or his mother, must now fear for their lives.’

  ‘But Evdokia has been locked up for years. She has taken the veil – finally! – and is known by the name of Sister Elena.’

  ‘The Tsar doesn’t care. He is already talking about the Suzdal conspiracy, after the name of her convent. Supposedly, the poor soul had a lover there, a Stepan Glebov. Alexey is said to have written to and visited her there. That makes Evdokia guilty of Alexey’s attempt to flee the country. I think she will grow to regret ever having given him life.’

  Wind rattled at the closed shutters; flames cowered under it in the fireplace. ‘What else is Alexey accused of ?’

  ‘High treason.’ Alexandra Tolstoya’s dark eyes were big and sad.

  ‘High treason?’ I gasped. ‘But that means . . . He can’t . . .’

  She crumbled and cried nervously, almost without a sound. ‘His own son!’

  I knelt down next to her and we embraced each other. ‘Is there no hope for mercy?’ I whispered.

  The shadows swirling in the room made her delicate face drawn and aged when she said, ‘The Tsar will forgive him on one condition.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Alexey must tell him the names of all his allies. Each and every one, and he must spare no one. My brother says the Tsar will kill them all.’

  Only a few days later, my young son Peter Petrovich, who was unwell with a cold and fever, was declared Tsarevich and the successor to the throne. I would not leave his side, now that I was finally back with him, but Peter presented him on the Red Square to his two regiments in spite of the bitter cold.

  ‘Can’t we wait?’ I had pleaded, holding the boy and feeling his delicious weight, taking in his scent.

  ‘No, we can’t,’ Peter replied simply. ‘It’s now or never. I’ll strike Alexey with an iron hotter than anything he has ever known.’

  The court flooded in all its finery from the Kremlin to the Cathedral of the Redeemer. In his additional capacity of Archbishop of Pskov, Feofan Prokopovich led the service. Alexey was ashen-faced as he kissed his half-brother’s chubby hand and his knees trembled when he swore loyalty to my son. He kissed my cheeks three times as a sign of peace, but avoided my gaze. He must have thought that this was what I’d always wanted. In truth, I hoped that it would suffice for Peter. But Alexandra Tolstoya’s warning haunted me: ‘Tsaritsa, believe me, it has not yet begun.’ While orators shouted Alexey’s sins from the four corners of the Red Square to the people: ‘Even when his virtuous, loving wife was still alive, he was fornicating with a creature of the lowest descent’ – what a mockery! What was Peter thinking? – I felt my child quicken: a brother for the Tsarevich, my son? Never before had I felt so secure, and at the same time so threatened, at Peter’s side.

  During my years with the Tsar I had witnessed many atrocities. Men had their caps nailed to their heads because they did not pull them off fast enough upon Peter’s arrival. Monks and nuns had their guts slashed because they had dared to call his decisions blasphemous. Old-fashioned Muscovites who had questioned the direction Peter was taking the country in and were smothered with molten metal. But he imposed the cruellest of all capital judgments – dying on the stake – on one man alone.

  Nothing had prepared me for what it meant to die on the stake. The man’s screams tore apart the air of the cold Moscow day before they faded to a faint whimper at nightfall, after endless hours of pain. His dark blood kept on seeping over the stones of the Red Square, which was true to its name that day, and the stench of his dying drifted into the Kremlin, strangling my soul. Why did this man have to suffer so much? An officer of the guard whose name none of us had heard before: Stepan Glebov. The answer was almost a joke, if it hadn’t been so sad.

  In his witch-hunt, Peter learnt that his first wife Evdokia, despite her monastic seclusion, had not only seen Alexey in secret, but had also begun a harmless little love story. Stepan Glebov was told to guard the Tsaritsa, but had been moved by her pitiful plight. She responded to his pity with all the passion that had been kept locked up in her heart during her years of imprisonment in the convent. The fire in her had smouldered still, instead of being suffocated by cold, starvation and endless prayers. Glebov did not name anyone else under torture, but Peter found her tender letters to the man, calling him lapuschka, her rabbit’s paw. Hadn’t she whispered the same nickname in his ear, during the few nights they had spent together? Glebov must pay for that.

  When all of his bones had been broken and flesh had been torn from his body with fiery tongs, Peter commanded him to be put on the stake. The pointed wood was driven through the poor man’s guts up to his chest. Evdokia howled at the news until her voice broke. After that, she refused to speak, I heard, and her mind drifted off into a realm that lay between the horrible truth and a gracious veil of madness and forgetting. To ask for forgiveness was in vain, that much she knew. Her only sin ever had been to marry Peter and fail to satisfy him.

  In those days, even I could not reach him. Afterwards he, too, was never the same again. No sleep was ever free from nightmares, and even his laughter was haunted and strained. Every feast, every drink, was a doomed effort to forget.

  On the night Glebov’s punishment started, I went to the locked door of Peter’s study. He was still awake: the unsteady light of candle flames flickered in the gap beneath the door. I knocked and his steps approached, but he would not open up. Yet I sensed his heartbeat through the wood: steady and as cold as ice.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked roughly.

  I folded my hands in pleading, as if he could see me. ‘Please, batjuschka! Let us put an end to this madne
ss, my love. Why are you persecuting poor Evdokia? Hasn’t she paid enough for the sin of giving birth to Alexey? You have me, and our children, and the love of your people. We are happy. Have mercy on her, love. What harm can she do to you, to us?’

  Peter opened the door and I drew back in horror: there was an expression of sheer madness on his face.

  ‘You ask for mercy for Evdokia? Well, if her lot means so much to you, then share it: I can have you shorn and carted off to a convent tomorrow. But it won’t be Suzdal where she was, with its sweet air and warm sunshine, you can be sure of that.’

  From somewhere far inside the palace, I heard footsteps approaching, halting, and then hastening away in the other direction. I pressed myself against the opposite wall. I could only pray for the souls of those who were near and dear to me. The Tsar had already sent his half-sister Maria to the dank cells of the Schlusselburg. Anyone could be next: myself, even my children.

  ‘All she did was to have a harmless little love story. And he was moved by her plight. Please –’

  Peter strode across the corridor and seized my elbow. He forced his face close to mine. I smelt his bitter breath but did not flinch away and met his eyes. There was no point in trying to escape.

  ‘Ah. You ask for favour for the horny goat who fucked Evdokia? I’ll tell you one thing and listen to me well – a Tsaritsa remains forever and ever the Tsar’s wife, untouchable by any other man. And you wish me to reconsider my judgment on Glebov? He’ll be alive for a good while, you know. I didn’t have the stake greased.’

  I swallowed hard, struggling for composure and courage. I had never seen him so threatening. ‘Yes. Show mercy. Please,’ I said.

  Peter hesitated. He reeked of long nights spent in the torture chambers, their dampness and dread; I could also distinguish stale smoke and the scent of the strong, cheap vodka he drank by the barrel together with his companions. He grabbed me by the hair and bent my head back. I howled with pain and my heart raced: was this it? ‘Catherinushka. Just to please you, my dove, I have thought again about my judgment on Glebov. Do you want to hear my decision?’

  ‘Yes,’ I gasped, as I knew I ought not to show any fear.

  ‘Well, then. I’ll have him wrapped in a fur coat, he’ll get socks on his feet and a cap on his head,’ Peter said, grinning.

  ‘What on earth for?’

  He forced me back against the wall, cupping my head in his hands. It felt as if he wanted to crush my skull.

  ‘Silly! The warmer a man is on the stake, the longer he lives; the longer he suffers.’ He laughed, shrill and sudden, and tried to kiss me, but I pushed him from me in disgust. He stood back, breathing heavily.

  ‘What’s wrong with you, my little Tsaritsa? You are not normally so squeamish, are you?’ His voice was mocking while he reached for me.

  I felt the fingers that had caressed me so often, that had chosen to hold me above all other women, against all the odds. What had I sworn to myself back then? I would not fear, even if it hurt. I would not fear, for his sake.

  ‘You reek of the blood on your hands. Do not dare to touch me,’ I said, almost in tears, and wiped his taste from my lips. ‘Let go of me.’ I pulled my hand from his. He stared at me. His silence frightened me more than his anger.

  ‘Brave as ever, Catherine Alexeyevna.’ In cold fury, he turned away, slamming the door to his study behind him.

  It took a long while before I could move away from the support of the wall and stumble along the empty corridor to our son’s room. He slept in his cradle, his nurse beside him, his little hand holding one of her fingers tightly. ‘Go and sleep,’ I said, gently shaking her and taking her place. ‘It’s my turn now.’ Little Peter Petrovich’s cheeks were rosy and round, and in his sleep his lashes cast shadows over them. At least he was spared the spectacle of this madness.

  Alexey did not ponder very long over whom he could sacrifice to save his own skin. The names spewed from his mouth like water from a spring. The majority of them were shockingly familiar to me. Peter’s oldest friends as well as his half-sister Maria; Evdokia’s family and an Old Muscovite bishop: the latter confessed without hesitation to praying nightly for Peter’s death. To him, Alexey was the only legitimate heir, born from a marriage blessed by God. I knew that he was not alone in this opinion in religious circles, but no voice from the Russian Church was raised to defend him. Better that Peter take the bishop’s skin than theirs.

  The following weeks and months swamped our lives, as icy and dark as the wintry Neva in their cruelty. I chose not to know, witness or remember the events of that time. When their bones were broken on the wheel, Peter’s oldest friends spat at him: ‘Despot! The mind needs freedom to evolve, it can’t be dragged there in chains. You strangle us in captivity and terror.’ He was stunned into silence and cold fury. Others were condemned to blows from the knout or forced to do heavy labour in mines or building canals.

  The bishop still had the strength to curse Peter before his death on the wheel: ‘Son of the Devil, you are a curse upon our country. If you lay a hand on your son, his blood shall come upon you and yours, to the very last Tsar. Fire and death upon your dynasty. God have mercy upon Russia: a curse upon the Romanovs!’

  Alexey had to witness the torment of his loyal friends and could neither eat nor drink as a result. He had hardly slept since he’d been brought before the council. The heads of his allies were displayed on pikes in the Red Square; their empty, horrified eyes stared at the passing crowds. In their midst, on a scaffold, hung the corpse of Stepan Glebov, Evdokia’s lover, still on his stake. Crows pecked at his eyes. Wild dogs tore the limbs off at night, dragging them away into the alleyways.

  I resisted the dark lure of evil, but watched helplessly as it took hold of Peter, turning his heart to stone.

  A few days after Glebov’s death, I left my rooms together with a young pageboy. I still did not like the Kremlin’s dark corridors; their shadows and the cold eyes of the icons on the walls scared me. I strained my ears: were those footsteps coming towards me? I halted, heard weapons clink. My heart raced. Was someone being arrested again? Had Menshikov set off on a bear hunt, or was it the guard patrolling as usual? In those days, every sound and every movement could signal death. I was trying to hear more when a detachment of guards came around the corner, led to my surprise by Antonio Devier, Rasia Menshikova’s husband and the head of Peter’s secret service. He bowed to me and the soldiers knelt in spite of their weapons. Only then did I notice the woman in their midst: a slight person dressed in black, her head veiled. She had to be a nun, as her long robe was woven of a rough, dark cloth.

  ‘Tsaritsa,’ Devier said, and she lifted her veil, eyeing me coolly.

  ‘To whom are you talking?’ she asked him, and then I recognised the tall, rounded forehead and the coal-dark eyes with their unhealthy shine. She had a long, narrow nose above her fine, bloodless lips. It was clear that her waxy skin never saw the sun and on her shaven head, boils and chilblains festered. Her fingers clenched the hem of the veil, as if she were about to grab something – or someone. I noticed her dirty, naked feet in worn leather sandals; her toenails were long, curved and discoloured. Yes, she did look like Alexey, or rather Alexey looked like her: Evdokia – or Sister Elena as she was now known. Her gaze scorched me as she took in everything about me: the grey pearls braided in my dark, glossy hair, my sable-lined, blue velvet cloak and warm boots made of embroidered leather. I felt ashamed: this woman should wear my clothes; this woman should have continued to bear Peter’s children; this woman should see her son ascend to the throne.

  The silence in the corridor became unbearable. I found it hard to breathe. Devier looked from her to me, unsure what to do. This was not God’s will, I thought. I felt only compassion for a wasted life and so I bowed my head and said: ‘Be blessed, Evdokia.’ Her gaze drifted from me into the darkness of the empty corridor: there was no more life in her heart, no more fire in her mind.

  Devier cleared his throat. ‘Let us
go.’ Soon, Evdokia’s footsteps were lost in the musty cold of the Kremlin and oblivion swallowed her. Peter moved her to a convent near Lake Ladoga. Conversation, even writing letters, was forbidden to her. She lived her life as a shadow and the punishment that Peter gave her was time: endless, empty, slow-dripping time, years and decades of it. I tried not to think of her; her fate scared me witless.

  At least she had loved once more, truly loved. For what had happened to my own feelings for Peter? Had they also fallen victim to the witch-hunt for Alexey and his allies? I roasted in hellfire in those days, emerging feeling raw as never before. How was I to live by his side and to love him as I should?

  I could only try.

  66

  We stayed in Moscow until Easter. Peter exchanged painted eggs and blessings with every courtier and the tables in the Kremlin were laden with kulitsh, a sweet milk-based Easter cake, and delicious pashka, a pudding made of fresh cheese and pickled fruits.

  Alexey sat at the table but would not eat; his clothes hung loose on his thin body. He seemed to me like a man made of glass who’d shatter at a mere touch. Peter, I guessed, was far from done with him.

  ‘When all the boring ceremonies are over, can I come to you tonight?’ he asked me, unperturbed, eating his pudding. I agreed, trying to forget the horror of the past few weeks, and he slept tightly snuggled up to me, one hand resting on my swollen belly. In the morning he listened through a little tube to the heartbeat of my unborn child.

  The feast ended the following day when Peter ordered all the guests to clear the paths in the Kremlin’s park so that we two could walk there before another restful little sleep. We both laughed at the pale faces of our guests, struggling to shovel away the snow fast enough to keep up with our steps.

  Anna, Elizabeth and my little Peter Petrovich threw snowballs at them, and whooped with joy when they hit my fool, the old Princess Anastasia Golizyna, straight in the face. ‘Hit and sunk,’ cheered Peter, spinning wildly with our son. ‘Come, fly with me, my boy.’ We clapped and cheered until they both fell down in the snow. They both started to make an eagle, until the little Tsar felt sick and vomited in the snow.